Dear Attorney General Holder and Deputy Attorney General Cole: CPJ's board of directors rarely has seen the need to raise its collective voice against U.S. government actions that threaten newsgathering. Today, however, we write to vigorously protest the secret seizing of phone records of The Associated Press. The overly broad scope of the subpoena and the lack of notification to the AP represent a damaging setback for press freedom in the United States and set a terrible example for the rest of the world.

That's one of the main messages of Rebecca MacKinnon's new
book, Consent of the Networked,
which had its New York
launch at the offices of the New America Foundation last night. In a
conversation with CNN managing editor Mark Whitaker, MacKinnon, a CPJ board member, said
it's up to concerned citizens, governments, and corporations to make decisions
about how the Internet is used. She contrasted the Twitter-powered revolt in
Egypt last year with the "networked authoritarianism" of China, where
corporations are collaborators in a system designed to preserve Communist Party
rule.

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Here's a quick pointer to an insightful Wall
Street Journal op-ed about Internet freedom from CPJ board member (and
former CNN colleague) Rebecca MacKinnon. She's based in Washington these days,
a Bernard L. Schwartz senior fellow at the New America Foundation, so she has
plenty to say about inside the Beltway funding issues. But she's even more
insightful on the growing global pressure on Internet journalists and activists
and tactics to help them.

The WSJ piece confronts issues that CPJ deals with regularly,
and not just in Asia. MacKinnon's Internet-related work ever since she left CNN
has been mandatory reading for anyone interested in these issues, and over the
years she's broadened her area of concentration well beyond the China focus she
had while working from Hong Kong.